Merci’s game plan

When I was in high school in the late 40s, my main interest was reading the books about the famous American lawyer, Clarence Darrow, his courtroom drama and antics.

In one case, his client antagonized the prosecutor. But he did not stop his client, assuring him he would win the case just the same.

When the decision of the jury was handed down, he won the case. I cannot recall the name of the book. What I recall was, when asked how he did it, his answer was, “Everything has a price.”

This reminded me of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and her game plan in fighting the impeachment against her.

Gutierrez fought Congress, even media and never showed a desire to correct what she was charged of. She insisted, she is not corrupt, has not stolen government funds. She was defiant, arrogant and determined to fight.

To placate the Congressmen, she even did not act on the cases she is charged, even by just filling cases, late though they may be.

***

What she has been saying was she will win the case in the Senate.

I am not a lawyer and don’t know what legal strategizing is but she may have the reason or reasons, product of many legal advices she has.

She said it, what she needs is only eight votes in the Senate to get acquitted. In Congress, she had to deal with more members of the justice committee.

Figure out, with only eight Senators to convince to acquit her and each vote would require, let us say, 10 million reasons, that will only mean eighty million reasons.

If the price goes up to 20 million reasons, it will require 160 million reasons. Or at 50, it will mean 400 million reasons.

The word for it is “Kaya!”

Gutierrez appears confident she’ll get acquitted. She has enough reasons. And clearing herself is not far fetched.

***

I got an e-mail from my friend Ruud Jansen from far away Netherlands, commenting on my item “Dust to Dust.” He wrote he “couldn’t completely place your quote of Longfellow. Some words fitted the poem but others were not there,” he said.

Only when he read and read again what I wrote that “I felt the music entering my ears and remembered a song with the starting words that you used, a big hit for the Byrds in 1965.”

Sorry, Ruud, the poem was rambling. I quoted Longfellow from memory and I am happy you like his Psalm of Life too. I quoted only the stanzas I liked and remembered.

Hope, you like Omar Khayyam too.

***

When I quoted Ecclesiastis of “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the heaven;” Ruud sent me a copy of a song of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” an abbreviation of “To Everything there is a Season.”

I quoted only two lines because that was all I could remember at the time.

The song, Ruud said, became an international hit in late 1965 when it was covered by the Byrds reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 26 on the U.K. Singles Chart.

The song, he added, holds the record as the No. 1 song with the oldest lyrics.

The first lines “To everything – turn, turn, turn,/ There is a season – turn, turn, turn/ And a time for every purpose under heaven.!

“A time to be born, a time to die/ A time to plant a time to reap/ A time to kill, a time to heal/ A time to laugh, a time to weep.”

Oh, Ruud Jansen is an authority on songs. Especially old songs.

***

Ruud Jansen also sent me the complete text of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life.”

Ruud is Dutch but it looks like he must have studied either in England or in the U.S. He is well versed in English literature.

I have long wanted to read Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village” but cannot get hold of a copy.

I like that poem that shows what makes a village deteriorate and get deserted.

I can only remember a paragraph, “Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,/ Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;/ Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade,/ A breath can make them as a breath has made,/ But a bold pleasantry, their country’s pride,/ When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”

Ruud, can you give me a copy of Goldsmith’s poem?

***

FEEDBACK: While waiting for the doctor, an acquaintance walks into the clinic and sits beside him.

Newcomer: Wwwwhat are yyyou dddoing here?

Man: Waiting to see the doctor. Newcomer: Wwwwhhat dddo yyou wwant tto se him for?

Man: I have a prostate problem. Newcomer: Wwwhat iss tthat?

Man: I pee like you talk.*

back to top